The trading price of Photronics Inc. (NASDAQ:PLAB) floating higher at last check on Wednesday, May 24, closing at $19.26, 11.91% higher than its previous close.
Traders who pay close attention to intraday price movement should know that it has been fluctuating between $16.9833 and $17.53. The company’s P/E ratio in the trailing 12-month period was 9.62, while its 5Y monthly beta was 1.18. In examining the 52-week price action we see that the stock hit a 52-week high of $25.81 and a 52-week low of $13.86. Over the past month, the stock has gained 34.97% in value.
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Photronics Inc., whose market valuation is $1.06 billion at the time of this writing, is expected to release its quarterly earnings report May 24, 2023. Investors’ optimism about the company’s current quarter earnings report is understandable. Analysts have predicted the quarterly earnings per share to grow by $0.44 per share this quarter, however they have predicted annual earnings per share of $1.65 for 2023 and $1.97 for 2024. It means analysts are expecting annual earnings per share growth of -14.90% this year and 19.40% next year.
Analysts have forecast the company to bring in revenue of $211 million for the current quarter, with the likely lows of $210 million and highs of $212 million. The average estimate suggests sales will likely up by 3.20% this quarter compared to what was recorded in the comparable quarter last year. From the analysts’ viewpoint, the consensus estimate for the company’s annual revenue in 2023 is $867.09 million. The company’s revenue is forecast to grow by 5.20% over what it did in 2023.
A company’s earnings reviews provide a brief indication of a stock’s direction in the short term, where in the case of Photronics Inc. No upward and no downward comments were posted in the last 7 days. On the technical side, indicators suggest PLAB has a 50% Sell on average for the short term. According to the data of the stock’s medium term indicators, the stock is currently averaging as a 50% Sell, while an average of long term indicators suggests that the stock is currently 50% Buy.
Here is the average analyst rating on the stock as represented by 1.00 to 5.00, with the extremes of 1.00 and 5.00 suggesting the stock should be considered as either strong buy or strong sell respectively. The number of analysts that have assigned PLAB a recommendation rating is 2. Out of them, 1 rate it a Hold, while 1 recommend Buy, whereas 0 assign an Overweight rating. 0 analyst(s) have tagged Photronics Inc. (PLAB) as Underweight, while 0 advise Sell. Analysts have rated the stock Overweight, likely urging investors to take advantage of the opportunity to add to their holdings of the company’s shares.
If we dig deeper into the stock’s outlook, we see that the stock’s PEG is 0.96, which symbolizes a positive outlook. A quick review shows that PLAB’s price is currently 24.61% off the SMA20 and 22.50% off the SMA50. The RSI metric on the 14-day chart is currently showing 80.78, and weekly volatility stands at 2.99%. When measured over the past 30 days, the indicator reaches 3.01%. Photronics Inc. (NASDAQ:PLAB)’s beta value is currently sitting at 1.15, while the Average True Range indicator is currently displaying 0.64. With analysts defining $18.00-$28.00 as the low and high price targets, we arrive at a consensus price target of $23.00 for the trailing 12-month period. The current price is about 6.54% off the estimated low and -45.38% off the forecast high, based on this estimate. Investors will be thrilled if PLAB’s share price rises to $23.00, which is the median consensus price. At that level, PLAB’s share price would be -19.42% below current price.
To see how Photronics Inc. stock has been performing today in comparison to its peers in the industry, here are the numbers: PLAB stock’s performance was 11.91% at last check in today’s session, and 25.06% in the past year, while AXT Inc. (AXTI) has been trading -2.69% in recent session and positioned -37.02% lower than it was a year ago. Another comparable company Micron Technology Inc. (MU) saw its stock trading -0.96% lower in today’s session but was down -6.06% in a year. Furthermore, United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) showed a decrease of -0.06% today while its price kept declining at -2.11% over the past year. Photronics Inc. has a P/E ratio of 9.62, compared to AXT Inc.’s 15.68 and Micron Technology Inc.’s 47.42. Also during today’s trading, the S&P 500 Index has plunged -0.74%, while the Dow Jones Industrial also saw a negative session, down -0.57% today.
An evaluation of the daily trading volume of Photronics Inc. (NASDAQ:PLAB) indicates that the 3-month average is 462.45K. However, this figure has increased over the past 10 days to an average of 0.53 million.
Currently, records show that 60.89 million of the company’s shares remain outstanding. The insiders hold 0.80% of outstanding shares, whereas institutions hold 93.50%. The stats also highlight that short interest as of Apr 27, 2023, stood at 2.02 million shares, resulting in a short ratio of 5.41 at that time. From this, we can conclude that short interest is 3.24% of the company’s total outstanding shares. It is noteworthy that short shares in April were down slightly from the previous month’s figure, which was 2.17 million. However, since the stock’s price has seen 14.44% year-to-date, investors’ interest is likely to be reignited due to its potential to move even higher.
